Business owners give glimpse of what Christmas festive season has in store

This year marks the second Christmas in a pandemic and while the year comes to an end, most business people are still struggling to balance the books.

Christmas normally brings good tidings for luxury products as many people buy new clothes for the celebrations and gifts for their loved ones. Things this season though, might not be as expected.

Kitale based entrepreneur and the CEO of Supreme Collection, Mike Simiyu, who deals in imported high class clothes, decries a decline of business this festive season as compared to the previous years. 

“Business is not good at all. Things are expensive and most customers are crying that they have no money to spend.

The timeline between closing of schools and reopening is also inconvenient, it seems most people are saving money for back to school and only spending on necessities,” he starts.

Mike, who used to import goods from both China and Turkey has since not travelled to China since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Dollar exchange

“Since then I have travelled to Turkey three times. I was even supposed to be making a trip before the year ends, but that hasn’t been possible.

The air ticket is also expensive and right now we are buying the dollar at Sh120, which is just high.

These rates translate to product prices as well so we have to sell on the same rate to make a little profit.

Things are generally harder this year compared to last year,” shares the business man.

While a usual Christmas would mean closing down for a few days after closing the books, this year things are different. Mike  intends to remain open for business with no break or off day at all.

“I will not be closing business this year, because I am not travelling anywhere for the holiday season.

Normally I close down from December 24 for three days, then close again on December 30, but this time I will be open throughout,” he says.

Allan Ouma Otieno, popularly known as MC Japolo, is the CEO of Japolo Holiday Homes in Homabay, and runs a beauty products online shop, which deals in both male and female beauty products he imports from Europe.

He says things are a bit shaky with the holiday homes as they have not been receiving international visitors since the onset of the pandemic. The luxury beauty products business on the other hand is booming.

Local tourists

“So far, the holiday homes business is not fairing on well because this pandemic has messed up the economy and since most of our clients are international, they are unable to travel.

We are depending on local tourists, whose numbers cannot be compared to the time when money was well and freely flowing. We hope things will get better next year though.

For the beauty products, demand is high since its Christmas season, everyone is out here buying classy beauty products for their loved ones, so it’s not all bad,” says Otieno.

As an entrepreneur running a start up, Aileen Onsombi, CEO Book Lounge, is not looking forward to taking a holiday break this festive season, business has to run as usual in service to those looking for a good book to read while on the break, a good book to gift a loved one while also getting ready for schools reopening as most parents will be buying books throughout trying to avoid the long queues at the start of the new year. 

“Holiday is not in my vocabulary. I will not be ‘vacaying’ like most people. Because holiday means getting away to some place or taking a break from work. 

My bookstore shall be open throughout the season and only closed for Christmas.

Being that it’s a bookstore, we have to be open as parents will take the last week of December to shop for back to school reading and writing materials for their children,” she says.

Online solution

She adds that as a season for gifting, customers are buying book for their loved ones and have them wrapped in gift bags as per their specifications. 

“All this is done online because most customers don’t physically walk to our store.

They only tell us what they want and how they want the gifts wrapped. Covid-19 seemingly improved online shopping experiences for most customers through various e-commerce sites.

A business only needs to word product descriptions in a compelling way accompanied by high quality pictures before posting them online.

So as the holiday season progresses we hope to serve as many bibliophiles as possible,” shares Aileen. 

Her general view of business this year is that things are still very slow with most businesses still slowly recovering from Covid-19 effects.

The pandemic interfered with people’s purchasing power due to loss of jobs. 

“But the year has been better than last year since most businesses reopened and people went back to back.

So we’ve been able to make new customers, reach a wider audience on our social media sites as well as be able to stock a variety of book genres. I am hopeful things will look better next year,” she adds, optimistic.